The project will
examine the impact of Indigenous burning, particularly patch mosaic burning, on
mammal communities by focusing on contemporary burning by Indigenous
communities of north-central Western Australia.

Dr Nimmo said, "It's speculated
that the loss of Indigenous burning regimes with the displacement of Indigenous
communities lead to the collapse of Australia's mammal communities by
homogenising the landscape, removing food and shelter, and exposing mammals to
introduced predators such as red foxes and feral cats."

"The Indigenous communities of
Australia's western deserts offer an invaluable opportunity to examine the
ecological impacts of traditional Indigenous land management in real time.

"For example, the Martu of the
western desert have lived in the western deserts for thousands of years with
fire intimately linked with their existence.

"They meticulously maintain a fine-grained
fire mosaic for hunting and gathering, one that mimics the fire management of
their ancestors."

The CSU academic has
also just won the 2016 Wiley Next
Generation Ecologist Award by the Ecological Society of Australia (ESA),
awarded annually to the most outstanding early career (less than five years
post PhD) ecologist in Australia.

Dr Nimmo will use the
award to travel to Pennsylvania State University in the USA to work with
collaborators on the project. "I am
working with Professor Bliege Bird and Associate Professor Doug Bird, two
researchers who've undertaken pioneering research on Indigenous fire in
Martu communities for over a decade," Dr Nimmo said.

"As anthropologists, they have
immense knowledge of the cultural, social and economic reasons underpinning
Indigenous fire regimes, and are beginning to think more closely about the
ecological outcomes of these fire regimes.

"I will combine my ecological expertise
on the impacts of fire regimes on Australia's ecosystems with their
anthropological expertise.

"There is real potential for synergies across academic
disciplines that are rare in the field of conservation science".